Once a pilot adds an instrument rating, they’re legal to fly an ILS in blowing snow all the way to 200-foot minimums with an 1,800 RVR. But few of us would actually attempt such a demanding task with only our training and perhaps a bit of experience in actual conditions under our belt. I’ll call those folks “pilots with an instrument rating,” differentiating them from someone with more experience who would confidently undertake that operation. I’ll call that person an “instrument pilot.”

So, if your goal is to gain high levels of proficiency, experience, and comfort to ultimately grow from being a pilot with an instrument rating into an instrument pilot, how can you do that? I’m glad you asked because that’s just what we’re going to cover here.

Why Do It?

Why might you want to do this? It’s a lot of work, will take time, and generally involves nontrivial expense. What’s to be gained? Everybody’s answer will be somewhat different, but I can help you find yours.

Perhaps the most important question is, “Why did you get the instrument rating in the first place?” Maybe you did it to meet career aspirations. Or possibly you did it just to improve the utility of your basic private certificate, allowing you to go when the weather had been keeping you on the ground as a VFR pilot. 

In both of those cases, I’ll—perhaps argumentatively—encourage you to be the best pilot you can be. As a professional, your clients will certainly expect and deserve that. You should be able to competently complete any flight that’s both legal and safe for the aircraft. If you can’t, well, reread the previous sentence.

• READ MORE: How to Meet Instrument Rating Requirements

But what if it’s just you trying to go visit a friend? Don’t you deserve the same level of competence and confidence in the management of your flight and control of your airplane? It’s common during those personal flights to bring along a friend or family member. They deserve the same level of consideration as any paying passenger, so you owe it to yourself and your passengers to, again, be the best pilot you can be.

On top of all that, there’s a certain degree of pride involved. How would you feel after that ILS at the destination if your needles were bouncing from peg to peg, and you somehow managed to luck out enough to see the runway as the needles passed through the center? Compare that with the satisfaction, and yes, the pride, in sliding down the approach with needles that barely migrated off the center circle. Challenge yourself to always do better, and you’ll rarely find yourself performing poorly. But if you do, you’ll almost certainly know exactly why, and you’ll resolve to recognize the same situation next time and surely use that recognition and anticipation to perform better.

What’s the Difference?

I’ve talked about pilots with an instrument rating versus instrument pilots, but what’s the difference? Defining “instrument pilot” is a bit easier, so I’ll start there. Note that all this is a distinction of my own creation, so if you talk with others about it, you might get that thousand-mile stare until you explain.

An instrument pilot is one who has had enough training, enough experience, and most critically maintains enough proficiency that they can handle most anything that a given flight might be expected to throw at them. That doesn’t mean comfortably flying your Cessna 182 into an area of moderate icing. But it does mean that the pilot is both comfortable and competent to handle an inadvertent encounter with more significant weather than on the day of the check ride. 

• READ MORE: Instrument Rating Can Expand Your Travel Horizons

That weather might include ice, moderate turbulence, significant gusty crosswinds, and, yes, lower visibility and ceilings than forecast—possibly all at the same time. Naturally, these conditions will produce a greater concentration and focus on the job at hand by the pilot, but they shouldn’t bring so significant a ramping of anxiety that performance or judgment suffers.

On the other hand, a pilot with an instrument rating is a newbie. But by newbie I don’t mean that the instrument check ride was recent enough that legal currency hasn’t yet lapsed. I mean that the pilot doesn’t have much (or any) experience with a broad enough range of weather and atmospheric conditions to remain mostly calm and focused in handling that. This pilot likely still views anything worse than basic VMC as a reason to reexamine the go/no-go decision and might (or should) have personal minimums not much lower than 1,000-3.

Your Path Via the Right Seat 

Say you recently aced your instrument-rating check ride. Or perhaps you’ve long had the rating but never really had both the opportunity and confidence to “get your nose wet” much more than in benign conditions. Regardless of your starting point, how do you get to be a confident, competent instrument pilot? 

Like many things in aviation, the answer to that question is “it depends” and has multiple paths. 

Say your ultimate goal is employment as a pilot. It doesn’t matter whether you want to end up at the airlines, freight pilot, charter pilot, or even personal or corporate pilot. Work hard to build your experience to the point where you can get that first job beyond a CFI at the local flight school. 

Your short-term goal should be to fly in the right seat in a two-pilot operation, so possibly the entry-level freight or medical transport jobs might not be the best choice. 

Having that experienced captain next to you will serve multiple purposes. First, it will allow you to experience more varied conditions than you might feel comfortable tackling on your own, especially at first. Also, while your captains might not be CFIs, you’ll receive a lot of instruction. Many captains in this environment understand your need for experience and further education and happily provide it. Others might not want that role, leaving you to provide your own education through quiet observation.

• READ MORE: Instrument Rating: Why Are You Waiting?

Either way, flying with someone who’s both more experienced and has ultimate responsibility for the outcome of the flight is a wonderful way to learn. You should be as cautious and as methodical as you would be if you were solo, but ultimately it will be the captain who evaluates the conditions and assures the safe outcome. This allows you to learn the safe capabilities and limits of that operation in those conditions. You get to see what can be done and how to do it.

This route also will expose you to multiple captains, each with a different style. I remember vividly when I went through upgrade training at an airline, a member of management came into our class on the first day and asked us to reflect on our time in the right seat and try to identify the best captain we had flown with. After we considered that, he then asked us to think back over the same experiences and identify the worst captain we had flown with.

Everyone in the class had the same reaction. We were unable to identify a single-best captain. Instead, multiple captains were identified, each with some different traits that made us think of them. But everyone was instantly able to identify the single-worst captain with whom we had flown. 

As the class discussed, the manager then simply told us to determine the traits in the best captains that we wished to emulate and exactly what made that one person the worst captain and vow to never do any of those things we disliked.

If you’ve got your CFI or CFII, do as much advanced instruction as you can. Lacking a CFI, go around to all the pilots you can find and offer to fly with them as a safety pilot. Doing either of these won’t be as beneficial as flying with some 10,000-hour captain, but it’s still valuable experience to aid in your growth as an instrument pilot.

Learn from the Left Seat

But what if you don’t want to become a professional pilot and just want to be the best possible private pilot you can with the tools you have? There are a lot of paths you might choose, and I’ve got some recommendations that you can find your own variations along.

First, you must fly as often as possible. Every time you fly as pilot in command (PIC), fly IFR. I don’t mean 20-30 hours a year. I mean 10 hours or more a month, usually just about every week. This allows you to continue building on your experience rather than the ever-so-common two steps forward, one back. Even if the weather is “severe clear,” fly in the system to gain more experience and comfort within it. Rarely accept a visual approach at the destination. Fly an approach, even if it’s in VMC without a view-limiting device. If you can take a safety pilot, fly under the hood.

Don’t be afraid to tackle increasingly challenging weather conditions. Sure, if you just got your instrument ticket, you want to be very careful. But as you gradually gain more experience, put it to use. If you have a trip planned and the weather forecast stretches your comfort, that’s good. I often say that you can’t expand your comfort zone from within it. If the operation stretches your comfort more than you’re willing, find an instructor with plenty of experience and ask them to accompany you.

Watch for those marginal VMC and benign IMC days and go out to the airport and fly a few approaches on your own. As you do that more often, you’ll gain more comfort with those conditions.

I’m a strong believer in the value of simulators. I’m not going into a long discussion of sims, but here are a few basic points: If you can afford it, fly an approved sim, a Basic or Advanced Aviation Training Device (BATD/AATD). The difference to you at this point is largely irrelevant, so pick what’s available. Also, to the greatest extent possible, find something that simulates as closely as possible the aircraft you fly, both from an aerodynamic perspective as well as the panel. 

One of the lowest-cost approved simulators I know comes from Gleim Aviation. It’s a BATD that emulates a Cessna 172 SP with your choice of analog six-pack instruments or a Garmin G1000. If this is sufficiently close to what you fly, it’s an excellent choice for only $8,500.

If what you fly isn’t readily emulated with an approved simulator (which is common), you can build your own. My personal belief is that a sim that isn’t approved but closely emulates your aircraft is superior to an approved sim that isn’t close. That’s my thinking, but others disagree. 

My reasoning is simple. This is my example, but it applies broadly across the entire GA fleet. I fly a Cessna 340. Nobody makes an ATD for a C-340. The closest is usually a Beech Baron, but Precision Flight Controls can emulate a 414. Then, my airplane has full EFIS—there’s not a round dial on the panel. ATDs for any type might offer a G1000, but the retrofit stuff in my airplane is far different from a G1000. So to emulate my aircraft, I need to build the sim myself, and that won’t be approved for logging time. I’m OK with that. If I need to log some instrument time, I’ll go rent an approved sim for a few hours or get the time in my own airplane under the hood with a safety pilot a few times a year.

Once you’ve got access to a sim, fly it regularly, always in low-IMC. Fly approach after approach. Some weeks you’ll just fly approaches, repositioning yourself to the IAF and going in from there. Other weeks, practice with failures. On other sessions try doing a full flight from departure to destination. 

As you fly the sim more, add precipitation, ice, gusty winds, etc. In other words, build the severity of the weather until you can handle most anything. 

Then after completing one of these paths, you too will be an instrument pilot.

But There’s a Risk

Not long after I retired from 121 flying, I fell out of currency and needed the ol’ six-in-six to regain it. I hopped into an AATD and flew the requisite approaches, holds, etc., using raw data with no autopilot or flight director. The instructor was impressed. I was too, as I had never flown that sim before.

I figured it was all my experience as an instrument pilot. After all, that level of proficiency doesn’t leave you too quickly—or so I thought. Then a couple years later, repeat. Um, my performance was dismal, even with the flight director. What happened?

Well, instrument flight skills are highly perishable. If you’ve spent years comfortably flying as a proficient instrument pilot, well, reread that previous sentence. Once you no longer fly that often, you will lose those skills you worked so hard to gain. Trust me, it’s only through constant exercise that you can retain them.

So here’s my warning: Once you gain the competence and proficiency that you seek, you’ve got to continue working to maintain it. If you don’t keep flying at nearly that frequency, you risk reverting to just another pilot with an instrument rating. Although you might not have to start over to regain instrument-pilot status, you will have to work at it. You invested too much to get there in the first place, so don’t allow that proficiency to lapse.

This feature first appeared in the Summer 2024 Ultimate Issue print edition.

The post Ultimate Issue: Instrument Rating vs. Instrument Pilot appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Answer: The short answer is no. Echo top height is a volume product that originates from the NWS WSR-88D NEXRAD Doppler radars.

This is the same network of radars that is used to build the familiar radar mosaic pilots readily use in the cockpit. While not provided in the FIS-B broadcast, the echo top height product, however, is arguably the most misused data that is broadcast by SiriusXM to your satellite-based weather receiver.

Despite what many pilots are taught, this product does not represent the height of the cloud tops and should never be used as such since it is often likely to produce unreliable and inconsistent results.

When looking at any ground-based radar depiction, the colors you see are mapped to a quantity in decibels of Z, often abbreviated dBZ, where Z is the reflectivity parameter. As the name implies, reflectivity is the amount of energy that is returned (reflected) back to the receiver after hitting a target.

For precipitation, these targets are called hydrometeors that include rain, snow, ice pellets, and hail. There are a few exceptions, but generally speaking, the higher the dBZ value, the heavier the precipitation.

All deep, moist convection or thunderstorms have both a cloud top (the highest point of the cloud as measured from sea level) and top of the precipitation core within the convection. The “top” of the precipitation core is defined as the msl height of the highest radar reflectivity of 18 dBZ. This altitude is referred to as the echo top height.   

For example, imagine taking a vertical “slice” through a typical thunderstorm, such as the one shown above. The white dashed line shows the west-to-east slice with the echo top height shown on the left and the base reflectivity from the lowest elevation angle shown on the right. The radar depiction on the right is the view most familiar to a pilot.

However, to better illustrate how the echo tops are determined, the depiction below is this same slice from above that is shown as a vertical cross section of the radar reflectivity. In other words, it depicts all possible elevation angles from the radar’s volume scan through this slice.

The colors are the reflectivity values in dBZ. The highest values shown in the precipitation core are about 55-60 dBZ and are all below about 7 kilometers (about 23,000 feet). As height increases in the core, notice the values drop off to less than 15 dBZ.

By connecting the points where the values in the core drop off to the 18 dBZ value, this represents the echo top height (shown by the white squiggly line). For this cell, the highest point in this cross-section is 17 kilometers or roughly 56,000 feet msl.

Cloud top height, on the other hand, is higher than the echo top height. In fact, it can be 5,000 to 10,000 feet higher in some of the most intense storms.

The visible satellite image below is a good example of thunderstorms with overshooting tops. Given the time of day, the highest tops actually cast a shadow on the thunderstorm anvil. This is the column of air in the thunderstorm that will usually have the highest echo tops due to the vigorous updraft. 

Echo top heights are specifically used by forecasters to identify the most significant storms by locating the highest echo regions. Stronger updrafts are seen in regions where the highest echo tops are located.

Moreover, the parameter that has the highest apparent correlation with lightning is not the highest cloud top but rather the highest detected radar echo top of 30 dBZ or greater.

Shown above is the SiriusXM composite radar mosaic shown with the Garmin Pilot app. In addition to the radar reflectivity, storm cell identification tracking (SCIT) markers are shown.

These attempt to identify the movement and echo top height of various cells in the radar mosaic. The height provided is measured in hundreds of feet. If there’s an arrow, this defines the direction of movement, and the end of the arrow represents where the cell might be located in the next 60 minutes given its current speed and direction of movement.  

Lastly, this may seem obvious, but echo tops are not going to help identify the vertical extent of many weather systems unless those clouds are producing some kind of precipitation in the form of rain, snow, hail, or ice pellets.

Therefore, a stratus deck, even one that has some depth, won’t likely be picked up by the radar. In fact, it’s not likely you will see echo tops shown below 20,000 feet because of this. Echo tops are more appropriate for convective precipitation where the clouds have significant vertical depth.  

The post What Are Echo Tops? appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Answer: You’re in luck. The paper student pilot certificate was issued by the aviation medical examiner (AME) and not done through IACRA as we know it, so it is doubtful the learner already has an IACRA account.

• READ MORE: Is There an Official Weather Briefing

All you have to do is sit down with the learner and create a new application. Simply follow the prompts and fill out the application. In a few weeks he will get a plastic student pilot certificate in the mail.

Also, don’t forget to also verify the learner’s citizenship and give him a TSA endorsement, which have become requirements since 2002.

Do you have a question about aviation that’s been bugging you? Ask us anything you’ve ever wanted to know about aviation. Our experts in general aviation, flight training, aircraft, avionics, and more may attempt to answer your question in a future article.

The post How Do You Obtain a Student Pilot Certificate After a Break in Training? appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

That’s because both precipitation and smoke are a possibility during the airshow (July 22-28), according to Scott Dennstaedt, author of the EZWxBrief and a FLYING contributor.

• READ MORE: FLYING Unveils ‘Oshkosh Live’ Video Programming Lineup

For starters, the wildfires in Canada and to the west may result in some smoky skies, Dennstaedt said. This was a factor last year, resulting in thick haze, poor visibility, and blood-red sunrises and sunsets. Photographs taken in the early morning hours had a sepia-tone look to them—a bonus if you are taking pictures of vintage aircraft.

In a forecast released Thursday, Dennstaedt predicted AirVenture attendees may smell the smoke earlier in the day but by later afternoon could expect some convective activity that should clear away the smoke due to the unstable atmosphere and ground heating up.

Dennstaedt presents an entertaining and educational look at the factors impacting aviators who are trying to get to the event as well as what to expect when they get there. The data is derived from atmospheric tools used by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

EZWxBrief AirVenture Weather Roundup

The post Flying to AirVenture? What You Can Expect of the Oshkosh Weather appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Cooler heads observed that the majority of unintentional spins occurred in the traffic pattern, particularly on the base-to-final turn, where there was no room to recover even if the pilot knew how to. So knowing how to spin and recover served no purpose, besides its entertainment value—which, to be sure, was considerable.

Under the new dispensation, pilots were taught, in theory at least, not how to recover from a spin but how to avoid one. Nevertheless, stall spins, usually in the traffic pattern, still account for more than a tenth of all airplane accidents and around a fifth of all fatalities. Because they involve a vertical descent, stall spins are about twice as likely to be fatal as other kinds of airplane accidents.

• READ MORE: A Cautionary Tale About Pilot Freelancing

Why has the FAA’s emphasis on stall avoidance not done more to reduce the number of stall spin accidents? There are probably many reasons, but I think the lack of realism in the training environment deserves some blame. The training stall is a controlled maneuver, briefed in advance, approached gradually, calmly narrated, and recovered from without delay. The real-life, inadvertent stall is sudden, unexpected, and disorienting.

The pilot does not see it coming and so does nothing to prevent it. The training stall is so reassuring that pilots fail to develop a healthy fear of the real thing. After this preamble, you may guess that I am going to talk about a fatal stall spin.

The airplane was a Van’s RV-4, an amateur-built two-seat taildragger with a 150 hp Lycoming engine. It had first been licensed 13 years earlier and later sold by its builder to the 48-year-old pilot, a 1,300-hour ATP with single- and multiengine fixed-wing, helicopter, and instrument ratings. For the past six months, the pilot had been on furlough from regional carrier Envoy Air, where he had logged 954 hours in 70-seat Embraer ERJ-175 regional jets.

On the day of the accident, he added 24 gallons of fuel to the RV and flew from Telluride (KTEX) to Durango (KDRO), Colorado, a 25-minute trip, to pick up a friend. They then flew back to Telluride, where the temperature was 1 degree Fahrenheit, and a 10-knot breeze was blowing straight down Runway 27. The density altitude at the runway was about 9,600 feet.

Entering a wide left-downwind leg at about 100 knots, the pilot gradually decelerated and descended. By the time he began his base-to-final turn, he was about 200 feet above the runway and was going to slightly overshoot the extended centerline if he didn’t tighten his turn. His airspeed dropped to 50 knots, and the airplane stalled and spun. An airport surveillance camera caught the moment—a blur, then a swiftly corkscrewing descent. It was over in a few seconds. Both pilot and passenger died in the crash.

• READ MORE: Two Fatal Cases of the Simply Inexperienced

The National Transportation Safety Board’s finding of probable cause was forthright, though it put the cart before the horse: “The pilot’s failure to maintain adequate airspeed…which resulted in the airplane exceeding its critical angle of attack…” Actually, the opposite happened: The pilot allowed the angle of attack to get too large, and that resulted in a loss of airspeed. It was the angle of attack, not the airspeed, that caused the stall.

Still, it was an airspeed indicator the pilot had in front of him and not an angle-of-attack indicator, so to the extent that the pilot was consciously avoiding a stall, he would have had to use airspeed to do so. 

The published stalling speed of the RV-4 at gross weight is 47 knots. In a 30-degree bank, without loss of altitude, that goes up to 50.5. Individual airplanes may differ.

But in any case it’s misleading to make a direct, mathematical link between bank angle and stalling speed, although the NTSB frequently does just that. When you perform a wingover, your bank angle may be 90 degrees, but your stalling speed is certainly not infinite. In the pattern, you can relieve the excess G-force loading associated with banking by allowing the airplane’s downward velocity to increase—assuming that you have sufficient altitude.

On the other hand, with your attention focused on the simultaneous equations of height, position, glide angle, and speed that your mental computer is solving in the traffic pattern, you may not even be aware of a momentary excursion to 1.2 or 1.3 Gs.

• READ MORE: Three-Mile Limit: Novice Pilots Succumb to the Perils of Total Darkness

The RV-4, with a rectangular wing of comparatively low aspect ratio and no washout, stalls without warning in coordinated flight but is well-behaved and recovers readily. Uncoordinated, it can depart with startling abruptness. It resembles all other airplanes in being less stable when the center of gravity is farther aft, so maneuvering at a speed just a few knots above the stall may be more perilous when there is a passenger in the back seat. Like most small homebuilts, the RV-4 is sensitive to fingertip pressure on the stick and easily overcontrolled.

The NTSB’s report on this accident does not include any information about how many hours the pilot had flown the airplane or how many of those were with a passenger. The FAA registry puts the cancellation of the previous owner/builder’s registration just one month prior to the accident, suggesting the pilot may not have had the airplane for long.

The pilot never stabilized his approach. He descended more or less continuously after entering the downwind leg several hundred feet below pattern altitude—to be sure, the pattern at Telluride is 400 feet higher than normal—and never maintained a steady speed even momentarily. His speed decreased more rapidly as he entered the final turn, perhaps because he felt he was a little too low and instinctively raised the nose. Besides, the terrain rises steeply toward the approach end of Runway 27, possibly making him feel he was descending more rapidly than he really was.

A final factor that may have played a part in this accident is the altitude. The runway elevation at Telluride is at about 9,100 feet. Density altitude doesn’t matter for speed control in the pattern if you pay attention to the airspeed indicator, because all the relevant speeds are indicated airspeeds. But your true airspeed, which is 10 knots greater than indicated, can still create the illusion that you have more speed in reserve than you really do when you are making a low turn to final.

There’s a reason that students are taught to establish 1.3 V_s on the downwind leg, begin the descent abeam of the threshold, and maintain a good speed margin throughout the approach. It helps keep the stall-spin numbers down.

Note: This article is based on the National Transportation Safety Board’s report of the accident and is intended to bring the issues raised to our readers’ attention. It is not intended to judge or reach any definitive conclusions about the ability or capacity of any person, living or dead, or any aircraft or accessory.

This column first appeared in the Summer 2024 Ultimate Issue print edition.

The post Ultimate Issue: Analyzing a Fatal Final Turn appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

You did your weight-and-balance planning properly, ensuring that you were in the weight and center-of-gravity (CG) limits. Your preflight revealed no potential surprises. Now you’re lined up on the runway, your pretakeoff checks completed.

You release the brakes and move the throttle forward smoothly, just how you were taught. Your eyes scan from outside to inside, ensuring the temperatures and pressures are in the green and the airspeed is alive.

You rotate smoothly, but as the nose pitches, you feel yourself sliding backward. You instinctively grip the control column harder and pull it back with you. Your brain briefly registers that something has gone seriously wrong. The last thing you hear is the shrill shriek of the stall warning.

I wish I could say that something like this is extreme and highly unlikely. But unfortunately it’s not.

I should know. I almost became a statistic of a loss of control and stall during takeoff. I was flying with a friend, and it was very much like the scenario described above, only we were in a taildragger. I noticed something wasn’t right as soon as the tail came up on the takeoff. I went to rotate, and my seat started to slide backward.

Luckily, my friend, who was also a pilot, noticed the movement out of the corner of his eye. As I went sliding back, taking the control column with me, he pushed forward, hard, preventing a violent pitch. We almost went off the runway, but thanks to his quick reaction, we managed to get airborne and climb away safely.

I couldn’t understand how it happened. I checked that my seat was securely latched twice before we took off. Upon landing, we discovered that a stop on the seat rail was not correctly fitted. In fact, it was not fitted at all. It should have prevented the seat from moving more than about 5 inches should the latch mechanism fail. Needless to say, checking those stops is now part of my preflight. 

Have you heard that over 28 percent of fatal stall/spin accidents occur during takeoff? 

Why Do Aircraft Stall During Takeoff?

During takeoff, an aircraft is in a vulnerable place. With flaps and gear out, you’re creating a lot of drag, and it doesn’t take a large external force to upset the flight path. It’s also a critical phase of flight, requiring a lot of concentration. Even the smallest distraction can set a chain of events in motion.

If you have read previous articles on stalling, you probably know why aircraft stall (it’s all about critical angle of attack, not airspeed), how to recognize it, and have a better idea of how to recover and avoid it. If not, here’s a summary.

Since the beginning of 2024 alone, I have come across at least five GA accidents that resulted in a stall on takeoff or the go-around. There are also many accidents involving commercial aircraft that spring to mind. They all share a common theme—pilot decision.

Aeronautical decision-making (ADM) plays a big role in risk mitigation, and a quick Google search of stalls during the takeoff and approach indicate that the decisions of the pilot are what brought on that situation. This highlights the need for good quality training that isn’t just about the flying but also includes the decision-making process required for every flight.

Contributing Factors

Weight and Performance

Have you done your weight-and-balance calculations? Are you below the maximum all up weight (MAUQ) of the aircraft? Have you considered the day’s conditions? Just because the aircraft has four seats and a MAUW of 2,300 pounds doesn’t mean you should load it to the hilt.

A heavier aircraft requires more runway to get airborne. Have you done a performance calculation for the runway you’re operating from? Have you considered the density altitude, runway slope, headwind, and tailwind?

If you haven’t, you might find yourself halfway down the runway and still below flying speed. There’s a fence at the end of the runway. You glance inside, noticing your speed is still 10 knots below V_R. You look outside again, and the fence is uncomfortably close.

You have no choice. You pull back hard on the control column. The aircraft unwillingly unsticks from the ground but doesn’t climb. You pull back more because you have to clear the fence, and the stall horn sings its song.

Elevator Trim Position

Ever wondered why training aircraft have a neutral trim position? Have you seen airliners that have a green trim range indicator on their instrumentation? Light aircraft have quite a small CG envelope, so a neutral trim position is sufficient as long as the aircraft is loaded within the envelope.

But larger aircraft have a much wider CG range, and the trim is calculated before every takeoff.

The above photo is of the Embraer 135 multifunction display (MFD). Can you see the pitch-trim indicator? It’s not in an obvious place, and you could miss that it is set well out of the green range.

Normally, taking off with it in this position will result in an aural warning as you advance the thrust levers. However, should the aural warning not work (maybe a circuit breaker was pulled), the pilot could easily overlook the trim setting, leaving themselves open to overrotation and a potential stall after takeoff.

Taking off with the elevator trim in the wrong position could result in overrotation if it’s set too far nose up or underrotation, requiring the pilot to use excessive force and possibly overcorrect to over-rotation, if set too far nose down.

Another consideration is during the approach to land. In light aircraft, it is a good idea to have the elevator trim in the neutral position when landing. Depending on the aircraft and conditions, this might make the controls feel a little heavier on the approach, but it will protect you in the event of a go-around.

Applying power to go around with the trim too far in the nose-up position will result in a large upward pitch, which could result in a stall if you’re not expecting it. 

Center of Gravity

Training aircraft are designed to have a forward CG as it makes them more stable. This doesn’t mean that loading heavy bags or people in the aircraft won’t shift the CG aft. An aft CG could result in less, or even no, pitch down of the nose during a stall. 

During takeoff, it could result in premature rotation before flying speed is achieved, leading to very little or no climb. To achieve more lift at low speed, we can increase the angle of attack, but this gets us dangerously close to the critical AOA. 

While not that relevant to training aircraft, another consideration is load shift. Do you remember the Boeing 747 that crashed in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2013? Cargo wasn’t secured correctly and shifted aft on takeoff. 

Load shift becomes a consideration in any aircraft carrying cargo. Flying cargo in the GA8 Airvan, Cessna Grand Caravan, and Daher Kodiak, I was always acutely aware of correctly loading and securing the contents.

Aircraft Not Correctly Configured for Takeoff

In 1987, a Northwest Airlines MD-82 crashed after takeoff. The subsequent investigation indicated that the flaps and slats were not correctly configured for takeoff, resulting in a longer than normal takeoff run, reduced climb performance, and stall after getting airborne.

Investigation findings highlighted the improper use of checklists and SOP noncompliance to be contributing factors. 

I recently came across an accident report involving a Cessna 172, which stalled during takeoff in 2022.

The pilot loaded the aircraft with two other adults and operated out of a runway at 4,900 feet elevation. The flight took place in the early morning, so it wasn’t too hot yet (68 degrees Fahrenheit). 

Since the pilot was a holder of a commercial pilot license, it should have been an uneventful takeoff. Unfortunately, they decided that it was a good idea to strap the right-hand door of the aircraft to the wing strut to hold it open.

The increased drag resulted in a longer takeoff run, lack of climb performance, and subsequent stall.

Accidents like these highlight the importance of quality training to set the foundation for good airmanship and ADM. 

Risks and Considerations

While the majority of stalls during takeoff can be avoided just by practicing good airmanship and proper planning, there are some scenarios that might be outside of your control. Ask your instructor and see what they think.

Engine Failure After Takeoff

Many articles have been written about the engine failure after takeoff (EFATO), followed by the “impossible turn.” I’m not going to get into that here. But a stall can be prevented following an EFATO by identifying a suitable landing place within 30 to 45 degrees either side of the aircraft nose and flying it down rather than attempting a turn back to the runway. 

During your PPL training, you will be taught the pretakeoff safety briefing and touch checks, so that should something go wrong, you will instinctively react and recover. This is done to overcome the startle factor when things suddenly go awry, allowing us to instinctively do what we have been trained to do.

Birds

Where there is a runway, there will be birds. They are attracted to airfields and airports like bees to honey. No matter how well you scan the skies ahead, there is always a chance of birds crossing your flight path on takeoff.

What do you do?

For the most part, birds dive down to get out of the way. To create space, the logical thing for us to do is go up, right? Remember, we’re likely low, slow, and already at 5 to 10 degrees AOA for the climb, so pulling back on the control column is not the best idea.

Your best option is probably just to continue. If impact is imminent, you could duck down below the instrument panel should the birds go through the windscreen. Also consider that you may have engine trouble following the impact.

I’d rather deal with an engine failure than put myself into a low-level stall.

Downdrafts and Wind Shear

Common in the vicinity of thunderstorms, or mountainous areas, downdrafts can have you plummeting toward the earth at thousands of feet per minute. Consider delaying your departure until the storm has passed or until the winds have died down.

If you do find yourself caught in a downdraft, whether at altitude or close to the ground, don’t attempt to pitch to the heavens to outclimb it. You might just stall in the process.

Instead, don’t change the aircraft configuration, keep the wings level, add power, and do your best to fly out of it.

Stall Recovery During Takeoff

As you can see, stalls close to the ground should be avoided at all costs. But what should you do if you find yourself in that situation? A Google search doesn’t provide much information on recovery as most articles focus on prevention.

If the odds are stacked against you and you do find yourself stalled low to the ground, I can’t provide you with a one-size-fits-all recovery technique as there are too many variables involved.

Power-On Recovery Technique

1) Release back pressure to unload the wing. This needs to be just enough as releasing too much back pressure could result in a descent.

2) Simultaneously, smoothly apply full power. Anticipate the yaw and correct with rudder. Be aware that the aircraft will want to pitch toward the canopy, so you might need slight forward pressure on the control column to prevent it from overcorrecting. 

3) Keep the wings level and the ball in the middle with rudder.

4) Once the aircraft is stable and you have a positive rate of climb, do the after-takeoff checks.

While this is the recovery procedure for minimum height loss, remember that you could still lose several hundred feet during the recovery maneuver.

Some might argue that if you are low, it might be best to keep the aircraft in the stall as you will likely impact the ground with minimal forward speed. 

Personally, I would focus on keeping the wings level with rudder to prevent a low-level spin, aim to impact the ground as slowly as possible, and fly the aircraft as far into the crash as possible.

In Summary

Stalls close to the ground are rarely recoverable.

A correctly configured aircraft operated within its limits by a competent pilot shouldn’t get close to a stall. Prevention is better than cure, and a solid understanding of the fundamentals coupled with practical experience from quality training is essential to developing the skills required to keep you out of danger.

To become a safer pilot, I recommend more research of your own so that you can learn from the mistakes of others.

The post Takeoff Stalls and How to Prevent Them appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

• READ MORE: What Is the Rudder Used for in Flying?

Answer: According to an FAA spokesperson:  “Generally speaking, the FAA will accept [a pilot’s] last airman certificate application (Form 8710-1) or what they reported on their last medical application (Form 8500-8).” You should have access to at least one of those documents.

Pro tip: Moving forward, you may want to invest in an electronic logbook and save the information to the cloud, or at least record a digital image of each page of the paper logbook when you fill it up. If you rent aircraft, sometimes you can re-create your experience by cross-referencing your receipts. 

• READ MORE: Is There an Official Weather Briefing?

Do you have a question about aviation that’s been bugging you? Ask us anything you’ve ever wanted to know about aviation. Our experts in general aviation, flight training, aircraft, avionics, and more may attempt to answer your question in a future article.

The post What to Do When You Lose Your Logbook appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

I am coming up on 21 years as a CFI, and there are stumbling blocks I’ve seen freshly minted CFIs trip over. Here are 12 suggestions to help make your journey as an educator a smooth one for both you and your learners:

1. Use a syllabus

Even if you were not trained with a syllabus, or the school you are working at is Part 61 and doesn’t require it, please use one, be it paper or electronic form. It will help you stay organized and deliver lessons in a logical order. Make sure your learners have a copy and bring it to lessons.

Pro tip: If your learners don’t have a copy of the syllabus, you’re not really using one with them. They need to have a copy for best results.

2. Introduce FAA certification standards on Day 1

The Airmen Certification Standards (ACS) is required reading for both the CFI and learner. A learner can’t perform to standard unless they know what those minimum standards are. The ACS spells them out quite clearly.

Don’t wait until just before the check ride to bring them out and apply them. Use the ACS in the pre-brief so the learner knows the metrics for which they are aiming.

• READ MORE: The Importance of Embracing Proficiency Culture

3. Stress the use of a checklist

This starts with the preflight inspection. Have the checklist in hand. Teach to the premaneuver, cruise, and of course, prelanding checklists as well. Emergency checklists should be memorized.

Bonus points: Show the learner the pages in the pilot’s operating handbook or Airplane Flying Handbook from which the preflight checklist was derived. Teach them to use that if the checklist disappears— as it often does at flight schools.

4. Teach weather briefing and aircraft performance

Teach the learner to obtain and interpret a weather briefing and to calculate aircraft performance from Day 1. Discuss weather minimums and how their personal minimums will change as their experience grows.

If the learner does not want to fly in certain weather—such as especially turbulent days or if the weather starts to go bad during a lesson—be ready to terminate. Flight instruction is about teaching good decision-making in addition to flying skills.

5. Manage your schedule for the learner’s benefit

While it is true that most CFIs are building time to reach the airlines, do not overload your schedule at the expense of the learner. The learner should be able to fly at least twice a week, though three times is optimal for best results. Manage your student’s load so you are flying six to eight hours a day—that’s a hard stop at eight hours.

Be ready to go at least 10 minutes before the learner arrives. That means scheduling lessons so the aircraft is on the ground at least 15 minutes before the next lesson so that it can be serviced if needed and you can take care of the debrief and logbook of the previous client. Be sure the person who does the scheduling understands the limitations of scheduling, such as when you timeout at eight hours.

Pro tip: The quickest way to lose a client—and possibly your job—is to disrespect a learner’s time. There will likely be a time when you miss a lesson or are late. Apologize and make it up to the learner by giving them a free lesson, even if it means you have to pay your employer for the use of the airplane and your time. You won’t like it, but it’s about character and doing what’s right, especially if the school has a “no-show, you-pay” policy for the learners.

• READ MORE: Separation Anxiety: When Your Instructor Moves on, Your Logbook Tells the Story

6. Don’t spend too much time on the controls

This is a hard habit to break. Try holding a writing implement in your hand while you hold your other arm across your body. If you are going to fold your arms on your chest, tell the learner it’s to show them you’re not on the controls.

Some people interpret this posture as being angry, so make sure you say something up front.

8. Eliminate the ‘pretty good’ metric

“Pretty good” is not a pilot report on weather conditions or an assessment of the learner’s performance. Teach them to be precise on weather observations, such as “light winds, ceiling at 3,000 feet,”, and for learner performance use metrics, such as “altitude within 200 feet,” for performance review.

Ask the learner how they would like feedback on their performance—in the moment or at the end of the lesson in the debrief. Some learners prefer the CFI to sit there quietly while they flail around with the controls. Others prefer real-time correction, such as “your heading is off by 10 degrees,” which allows them to fix it.

9. Don’t pass up the opportunity to teach a ground school

That is when you really find out if you really are a teacher of flight or a time builder. Teaching in the classroom and demonstrating something in the airplane involve vastly different skill sets.

Reading slides off a screen or material out of a book is not teaching. To be an effective teacher, the CFI needs to get the learners engaged in the material. The best teachers are memorable.

• READ MORE: Make Flight Reviews for CFIs Worthwhile

10. Allow the learners to make mistakes

Mistakes are part of learning. In aviation, they happen quite a bit, and as long as no metal is bent, no one is physically hurt, there is no property damage, or broken FARs, allow them to happen.

If things go badly and the learner is upset, the worst thing you can do is tell them to sit there while you fly back to the airport. This can destroy their confidence. Instead, try having the learner review and practice a maneuver already learned. Strive to always end the lesson on a positive note.

11. Plan for poor weather or mechanical delays

Always approach each day with two plans for each learner—flight or ground. Let the learner know in advance what the plans are: “If we fly, we will do this; if we cannot fly, we will do that.”

There is the option to cancel if the flight cannot be completed, but you should be prepared to teach. For example, if the weather is below minimums or an aircraft is down for maintenance and the shop rules permit it, take the learner into the hangar and do a practical pointing using the aircraft engine or cockpit instruments.

12. Make time for your own proficiency and currency

Protect your flying skills. You can do this in part by demonstrating takeoffs and landings or by asking the learner if they are OK with you doing a few at the end of the flight with the understanding you will be paying for that aircraft time and will adjust the bill accordingly.

Don’t neglect your instrument skills either. Use the advanced aviation training device (AATD) if the school has one and shoot a few approaches and holds a couple times a month, or pair up with another CFI during off-peak hours to do some real-world IFR flying.

An instrument rating is part of the requirement to be a CFI, so make sure you keep it ready for use.

This column first appeared in the Summer 2024 Ultimate Issue print edition.

The post Ultimate Issue: First Few Hours of Being a CFI Are the Hardest appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Answer: Rudder controls the side-to-side motion of the nose of the airplane—the technical term for this is yaw.

To make the airplane turn (bank), the pilot moves the yoke or stick in the direction they want to turn. This activates the ailerons, which are the outboard, moveable panels on the wings.

The downward-deflected panel is on the outside of the turn, and as the downward deflection increases the surface area of the wing, it generates more lift. The aircraft nose yaws toward the side with the wing generating more lift. From the pilot’s perspective, that yaw is in the opposite direction of the turn. As this turn is opposite to the direction of the turn the pilot wants, the technical term for this is adverse yaw. 

In the airplane, banking without using the rudders feels a little bit like someone pulling you sideways by the seat of your pants. It is poor airmanship as it results in an uncoordinated turn.

In an aircraft with a turn coordinator or slip skid indicator (the instrument that has a tube and ball in it that acts in response to lateral motion), note that if the airplane is banked only with aileron, the ball will be to the outside of the turn. To correct this, the pilot steps on the rudder on the same side the ball is deflecting to. This corrects the adverse yaw.  “Step on the ball” is the phrase you often hear. When flying an aircraft with a glass panel that has a triangle with a lateral moving base, the phrase “step on the line” is used.

The rudder controls the adverse yaw, and when correctly applied results in a coordinated (smoother) turn.

For more information refer to the Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge (available on the FAA website or at brick-and-mortar stores) in Chapter 6, Flight Controls.

The post What Is the Rudder Used for in Flying? appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Answer: It depends on your mission and how many Ben Franklins you have to spare. Your sferics (short for radio atmospherics) equipment may represent the only real-time weather you’ll ever see in your cockpit.

Sure, panel-mounted and portable weather systems deliver their product in a timely fashion, but it will never be as immediate as your sferics device. Once you understand how to interpret your real-time lightning guidance, it can become a valuable asset in your in-flight aviation toolkit. 

Choices in the Cockpit

You have two options if you want lightning data in the cockpit: You can choose from ground-based lightning sensors or onboard lightning detection from a sferics device such as a Stormscope.

A Stormscope provides real-time data but does require some basic interpretation. Ground-based lightning, on the other hand, is a bit delayed and is only available through a data link broadcast at this time. Ground-based lightning is normally coupled with other weather guidance, such as ground-based weather radar (NEXRAD), surface observations, pilot weather reports, and other forecasts.   

Ground-Based Lightning

The ground-based lightning that’s now available through the Flight Information System-Broadcast (FIS-B) comes from the National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN). This network of lightning detectors has a margin of error of 150 meters for locating a cloud-to-ground strike. The ground-based lightning sensors instantly detect the electromagnetic signals given off when lightning strikes the earth’s surface.    

With 150-meter accuracy, I’d choose ground-based lightning any day. Don’t get too excited, though. Ground-based lightning is expensive (the data is owned by private companies like Vaisala), and you’ll not likely see a high-resolution product in your cockpit anytime soon.

SiriusXM satellite weather pulls from a different lightning detection network and includes both cloud-to-ground and intracloud lightning. It produces a 0.5 nm horizontal resolution lightning product. This means that you will see a lightning bolt or other symbol arranged on your display in a 0.5 nm grid.

Even if 50 strikes were detected minutes apart near a grid point, only one symbol will be displayed for that grid point. Same is true for the FIS-B lightning.

Stormscope Advantages

A Stormscope must be viewed as a gross vectoring aid. You cannot expect to use it like onboard radar.

Nevertheless, it does alert you to thunderstorm activity and will provide you with the ability to see the truly ugly parts of a thunderstorm.  Where there’s lightning, you can also guarantee moderate or greater turbulence.   

No lightning detection equipment shows every strike, but the Stormscope will show most cloud-to-ground and intracloud strikes. This allows you to see the intensity and concentration of the strikes within a cell or line of cells with a refresh rate of two seconds. It also lets you see intracloud electrical activity that may be present in towering cumulus clouds even when no rain may be falling.

Even if no cloud-to-ground strikes are present, intracloud strikes may be present. The Stormscope can detect any strike that has some vertical component (most strikes do). This is important since there are typically more intracloud strikes than cloud-to-ground strikes.

To emphasize this point, most of the storms in the Central Plains have 10 times more intracloud strikes than cloud-to-ground strikes. Moreover, during the initial development of a thunderstorm, and in some severe storms, intracloud lightning may dominate the spectrum. 

Also keep in mind that a sferics device does not suffer from attenuation like onboard radar. That is, it can “see” the storm behind the storm to paint cells in the distance out to 200 nm, but it does not see precipitation or clouds.     

Stormscope Disadvantages

It doesn’t take a full-fledged storm, complete with lightning, to get your attention.

Intense precipitation alone is a good indicator of a strong updraft (or downdraft) and the potential for moderate to severe turbulence in the cloud. Consequently, the Stormscope does not tell you anything about the presence or intensity of precipitation or the absence of turbulence.

Never use the Stormscope as a tactical device to penetrate a line of thunderstorm cells. Visible gaps in the cells depicted on the Stormscope may fill in rapidly. Fly high and always stay visual and you will normally stay out of any serious turbulence.        

A Stormscope display is often difficult to interpret by a novice. Radial spread, splattering, buried cables, and seemingly random “clear air” strikes can create a challenge for the pilot. It may take a couple years of experience to be completely comfortable interpreting the Stormscope display. Often what you see out of your window will confirm what you see on your display.    

Radial Spread

As the name suggests, the biggest Stormscope error is the distance calculation along the radial from the aircraft.

The placement of the strike azimuthally is pretty accurate. However, how far to place the strike from the aircraft along the detected radial is a bit more complicated and prone to error.

Lightning strikes are not all made equally. When the sferics devices were invented back in the mid-1970s, they measured the distance of the cloud-to-ground strike based on the strength of the signal (amperage) generated by the strike. An average strike signature of 19,000 amperes is used to determine the approximate distance of the strike.

Statistically, 98 percent of the return strokes have a peak current between 7,000 and 28,000 amperes. That creates the potential for error in the distance calculation. This error is a useful approximation, however, in that strokes of stronger intensity appear closer and strokes of weaker intensity appear farther away. 

In strike mode on the Stormscope, strikes are displayed based on a specific strike signature, whereas cell mode on the newer Stormscope models uses a clustering algorithm that attempts to organize these strikes around a single location or cell.

Cell mode will even remove strikes that are not part of a mature cell. Most thunderstorm outbreaks are a result of a line of storms. Cell mode provides a more accurate representation to the extent of the line of thunderstorms.

Radial spread is not necessarily always a bad thing. You can use it to your advantage to distinguish between false or clear air strikes and a real thunderstorm. Most of the strikes of a real storm will be of the typical strike signature and be placed appropriately.

As mentioned above, stronger than average strikes will be painted closer to the airplane. Looking at this in strike mode, a line of these stronger strikes will protrude toward the aircraft.  The result is a stingray-looking appearance to the strikes.    

You can confirm this by clearing the display.  The same stingray pattern should reappear with the tail protruding once again toward the airplane.

Clear Frequently

Clearing the Stormscope display frequently is a must.  How quickly the display “snaps back” will provide you with an indication of the intensity of the storm or line of storms.

You should be sure to give these storms an extra-wide berth.  Clearing the Stormscope in “clear air” will also remove any false strikes that may be displayed allowing you to focus on real cells that may be building in the distance.

Aging

Both ground-based and onboard lightning use a specific symbol to indicate the age of the data.

For Stormscope data shown on the Garmin 430/530, a lightning symbol is displayed for the most recent strikes (first six seconds the symbol is bolded). The symbol changes to a large plus  sign after one minute followed by a small plus  sign for strikes that are at least two minutes old. Finally, it is removed from the display after the strike is three minutes old.

Cells with lots of recent strikes will often contain the most severe updrafts and may not have much of a ground-based radar signature. Cells with lots of older strikes signify steady-state rainfall reaching the surface that may include significant downdrafts. 

Flight Strategy

A nice feature of a Stormscope is that you can quickly assess the convective picture out to 200 nm while still safely on the ground. Same is true for lightning received from the SiriusXM datalink broadcast.

However, for those with lightning from FIS-B, you won’t receive a broadcast until you are well above traffic pattern altitude unless your departure airport has an ADS-B tower on the field.  

As soon as your Stormscope is turned on, within a few minutes you’ll get a pretty good picture of the challenging weather ahead. If you are flying IFR, you may want to negotiate your clearance or initial headings with ATC to steer clear of the areas you are painting on your display. I’ve canceled or delayed a few flights based strictly on the initial Stormscope picture while I was still on the ramp. 

Another goal is to fly as high as allowable. You will benefit from being able to get above the haze layer, and the higher altitude will allow you to see the larger buildups and towering cumulus from a greater distance.

If you are flying IFR and you are continually asking for more than 30 degrees of heading change to get around small cells or significant buildups, then you should call it quits. You are too close, or you are making decisions too late.

Visual or not, the goal is to keep the strikes (in cell mode) out of the 25-mile-range ring on your Stormscope. If one or two strikes pop into this area, don’t worry. Just keep most of the strikes outside of this 25-mile ring.      

Don’t discount the value of a sferics device.  Add one of the data link cockpit weather solutions as a compliment, and you will have a great set of tools to steer clear of convective weather all year long.

The post Is Sferics Equipment Still Needed in the Cockpit? appeared first on FLYING Magazine.